Inside and outside of Oakland

Debbie Dingell bows out of Michigan U.S. Senate race

  Apparently, one Dingell in Congress is enough.
  Debbie Dingell, wife of U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a Dearborn area Democrat, announced Saturday she won't run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated at the end of 2014 by Carl Levin.

  Dingell sent out a lengthy statement released through the Michigan Democratic Party Saturday morning.
  "It's also no secret that I think we need more women in the Senate and in the House, and there was an attraction to potentially being the junior member of an all-Debbie Senate delegation," Dingell's statement said in part.
  "But I think it is critical that Democrats unite behind one candidate for what will be a difficult and expensive race, and it's one of the reasons I have concluded that now is not the time for me to run for the United States Senate," Dingell said. "We have good candidates like Gary Peters considering running, and a primary would be divisive at a time that cries out for unity."
  Had Dingell chosen to run, she would have faced a potentially bruising primary against Peters, a Bloomfield Township Democrat in his third term in the U.S. House.
  Peters is also weighing a run for Levin's seat.
  But Republicans are taking a close look at it too, among them U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers from Howell, who reported last week that he has $1.4 million in cash on hand in what is sure to be an expensive race.
  Levin announced recently he wouldn't be seeking a seventh six-year term in the Senate in order to focus on solving the nation's problems.
  Michigan's two senators are both Democrats. Debbie Stabenow is the state's junior senator. She was elected in November to a third six-year term.
  Michigan's last Republican senators were Spencer Abraham, who Stabenow defeated in 2000, and Robert P. Griffin, who left office at the end of 1978.

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